Research
“Pursuit rated” means nothing, and Michigan says so
The phrase appears in almost every police car listing. The department whose tests everyone cites as proof states plainly that there is no such rating, and nobody with the authority to award it.
Look at any classified ad for a surviving patrol car and you will find it. Pursuit rated. Sometimes factory pursuit rated, occasionally certified pursuit rated, as though somewhere there is an office that issues the certificate.
There isn’t. And the clearest statement to that effect comes from the organisation the phrase is usually leaning on for credibility — the Michigan State Police, whose annual evaluation has been the benchmark test in this field for half a century.
What the book actually says
In the 2019 evaluation, in a section headed simply Evaluation Information, Michigan addresses the term directly. The wording is unusually blunt for a government test report.
The department writes that the term has been called into question because nobody fully understands what it represents. It states that pursuit capable is the more appropriate phrase. It notes that there is no sanctioning body behind the designation and no specific performance criteria attached to it. And then it says the part that ought to end the argument: neither the Michigan State Police nor the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has the authority or the credentials to award the term “pursuit rated” to any vehicle.
Those are the two organisations that run the only serious police vehicle tests in the United States. Between them they have been evaluating patrol cars since the 1950s. Neither believes it can rate a vehicle as pursuit rated, because there is nothing to rate it against.
The same passage appears again, essentially word for word, in the 2026 book. It is not an offhand remark that slipped into one edition. It is a position the programme has now printed twice.
The phrase is not a specification that manufacturers meet. It is a phrase that sellers use, and it has never meant anything more than that.
What does exist, and it is far more interesting
Michigan has no rating to award. What it has is a purchasing specification — the list a vehicle must satisfy before the department will consider buying it. The 2019 book prints it in full, and it is worth reading because it is so much more specific than the phrase it replaces.
| Requirement | Standard |
|---|---|
| 0–60 mph | within 9.0 seconds |
| 0–80 mph | within 14.9 seconds |
| 0–100 mph | within 24.6 seconds |
| Reach 110 mph | within 4,838 feet |
| Reach 120 mph | within 8,985 feet |
| Braking | average 25.79 ft/s² across twenty 60-to-0 stops |
| Durability | complete all 32 laps without major component failure |
Notice what is not on that list. There is no top speed requirement — because, as the test books themselves demonstrate, a top speed figure is mostly a manufacturer’s software setting rather than a capability. Instead the standard asks how quickly a vehicle reaches a useful speed, measured in feet of road, which is a question about an actual pursuit.
Michigan is careful about what meeting this list means. It does not certify a vehicle. It justifies that the vehicle can do the job the MSP needs done. Another agency, in another state, with different roads and different work, is entitled to a different list.
The least impressive requirement turned out to be the one that mattered
Read that table again and the last line looks like housekeeping. Complete all 32 laps without major component failure. Next to a 24.6-second run to 100 mph it sounds like a formality.
In the very same book, it was the requirement that failed two vehicles.
During the September 2018 dynamics session, in temperatures climbing from 70°F in the morning to 88°F by mid-afternoon, both Chevrolet Tahoes went into partial power or protect mode on lap seven or eight of every run, for every driver. General Motors investigated and identified malfunctioning thermal bypass valves, which control the flow of transmission fluid through the oil cooler. The parts were replaced and both vehicles retested in October, in 46°F — where the rear-drive car still lost power on its final laps.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department then tested both Tahoes on 25 October, in 84°F. The four-wheel-drive car overheated again. GM declined further testing until it had found the root cause. The vehicle was eventually redeveloped and, on 24 January 2019, completed a full course in California — and Michigan, with Grattan closed for winter, accepted that result.
None of that appears in a 0–60 time. None of it appears in a top speed. It appears only in the plainest line on the list, and it is precisely the failure that matters to somebody driving the thing on a hot afternoon.
The distinction that does exist: package, not rating
If “pursuit rated” is empty, what should a buyer actually look for? The answer is the one Michigan formalised in 1999: the difference between a police package vehicle, engineered for the full range of patrol work including pursuit, and a special service vehicle, which is not.
That distinction is real, it is a manufacturer’s own designation, and the archive shows exactly what it buys. The clearest demonstration runs across four years and two versions of the same truck.
Michigan’s brake test asks one pass-or-fail question: is there evidence of severe fading? Almost everything answers no. The special-service four-wheel-drive Tahoe answered yes in 2005, 2007 and 2008 — while the pursuit-rated PPV built on the same platform never faded once, in any year.
2005 shows it cleanly. On their first phase the two Tahoes stopped within a quarter of a foot of each other — 144.65 feet and 144.87. After six hard stops and a four-minute heat soak, the police package car lost nothing. The special-service car needed 164.62 feet. Twenty feet of difference, invisible in any single stop, and exactly what the package designation is for.
“Pursuit rated” tells you what a seller wants you to think. “Police package” tells you what the manufacturer was prepared to certify — and the brake sheets tell you whether it was true.
What to do with this
If you are buying: ignore the phrase entirely. Ask for the package code instead — 9C1, P71, or whatever the manufacturer used that year — and check it against the build sheet or the VIN. A package code is a fact that can be verified. A rating is not. Our guide to identifying a genuine police package car covers how, and the option codes reference lists the codes themselves.
If you are writing or selling: “police package” is accurate, checkable and means something. “Pursuit rated” is not, and now that the department everyone cites has said so twice in print, using it is a choice rather than an oversight.
And if someone tells you a car is pursuit rated because it passed the Michigan tests: the Michigan tests do not issue ratings. They publish numbers. Those numbers are all in the archive, year by year, and they are considerably more useful than any phrase could be.